


In Absentia

by almostblue (fictionalaspect)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Dark, Explicit Language, Friendship, Love/Hate, Mystery, Post-Hogwarts, The Quidditch Pitch: Leaving Feast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-29
Updated: 2006-01-28
Packaged: 2018-10-26 12:04:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10786410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalaspect/pseuds/almostblue
Summary: It is five years after the war, and Harry and his team of Aurors are finally finished cleaning up the mess left by Lucius Malfoy and his renegade Death Eaters. Deep below the grounds of Malfoy Manor, they find the body of Draco Malfoy, kept in perpetual statis through blood magick. But as far as they know, Lucius Malfoy never had a son...





	1. Parts I & II - Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes:

This is in 2nd-person POV so I realize that might throw some people off. However, i'm really enjoying this writing in this style and looking for feedback on it, so any comments/feedback/constructive criticism is greatly appreciated <3

  


* * *

**I. Lost**  
  
There’s not a speck of dust in the house, the empty halls echoing with surgical cleanness as you walk through the foyer. Upstairs, to your left, the main parlor; over and to the right, the receiving room. The furniture gleams, reflecting and distorting your face, tinted sienna like an old muggle photograph. Even the air feels clean, if not fresh and healthy. The house makes you feel fragile, all the heirlooms watching and watching for you to trip and shatter something, just like they did years ago. There’s a crystal sculpture in the middle of the dining room table and you pick it up, feeling its cool weight in your palm. Dead things. This house is full of dead things.  
  
But even that doesn’t go far enough, you realize. It’s not that there has been life that has died, rubbed out like a bad stain—no, there was never anything here to begin with. Cold and dead.  
  
You smirk.  
  
Cold and dead. Just like its owner.  
  
“….Harry?”  
  
Hermione’s voice trails down the hallway, thin and brittle. You turn and she’s standing there, perched in the doorway like an hatchling unwilling to leave the nest. You know she’s curling her toes inside her boots right now, like she always does when she’s nervous. You smile dutifully.  
  
“It’s okay, Hermione. He’s dead. They all are. Walking into the Malfoy’s living room isn’t going to kill you.”  
  
She steps through the doorway, stirring up the non-existent dust into the beams of late afternoon sunlight slicing through the heavy drapes over the windows. The February light brings out the shadows beneath her eyes, her pale skin and the way she now hunches over a bit when she walks. No more proud Hermione, striding into battle with wand out and eyes blazing. Now, after this, after everything, she curls into herself.  
  
True to form, it did not end in fire, but in ice.  
  
You flex your fingers, rubbing circulation into the swollen joints. You’re not sure why you’re here. Malfoy manor was secured weeks ago, and scanning spells have confirmed that there is no life in the building, not even in the underground dungeons. The only remaining thing is to disable the wards, to remove every last trace of Lucius Malfoy and his magical signature from the house. It’s something a junior operative like Melinda could have handled easily, and beyond the needed supervision there’s really no reason that you’re here.  
  
No.  
  
You know that’s a lie. It’s there, pushing at the back of your thoughts, like it has been ever since Malfoy was killed in the final days of the war. And it’s absurd really; everyone remembers the scandal from before the war, when it broke that Narcissa’s baby girl was a bastard and that there was no Malfoy heir. In retrospect, you think that everyone should have seen it coming; after all, who ever heard of a Malfoy baby with brown hair? You were in your teens then, and you remember her face peering out from the Daily Prophet, cold grey eyes behind grey bars. That had been Rita Skeeter’s doing. Bloody crazy woman. You thank Merlin that she’s old and senile, and that the only rumors she’s spreading right now involve petty romantic entanglements and not vicious, life-changing lies  
  
Yet and after all that, you just can’t let it go. And it’s irrational, and both Ron and Hermione have told you so.  
  
But there’s just a flash of something, a blond blur that you just can’t shake out of your head.  
  
 _There was a son._  
  
You slip your gloves back on and walk out the doorway, ignoring the memory lightly brushing against your consciousness. There are still wards in the dungeons, and you have things to do.  
  
::  
  
Hermione has decided to allow the team the luxury of a lunch break, seeing as how this isn’t a high-priority mission. Really, out here in the snow and air, there’s no reason to rush; it’s been so long since any of you have had time to relax outdoors, and you’ve already dropped several snowballs down the back of Hermione’s cloak, to the delight and consternation of the younger members. You take a sip of your spell-warmed pumpkin cider and inhale the vapor rising in the cold air – the warmth feels good in your lungs, the whiff of wet air enough to take away the brittle dryness of the February chill in your throat. You’re down near the now-abandoned greenhouses, strolling among rows of plants left to fend for themselves. There’s a half-smile on your face as you think about what Neville would have had to say about the anarchist revolution the mandrake seems to be attempting over in the corner.  
  
It’s been so long since you’ve seen green, healthy plants that you almost forgot that they remind you of Neville. Because the greenhouse’s glass walls work on solar power instead of magic, it’s still a balmy 65 degrees inside. You avoid getting hit by a particularly energetic whomping willow seedling, and are about to duck under an overhanging vine of unknown origin when you abruptly trip over nothing and then proceed to smack your head on a large, rather firm chunk of nothing. Reaching out, you wipe the blood from your forehead, knowing that no matter how much you bleed a forehead cut is never serious. You can feel the magic running through your entire body like the time Dudley shoved you in the shower and then jammed your fingernail in the electric socket, back when you were a tiny boy with an odd scar and no past.  
  
There is something below your feet, and you have not felt wards this powerful since the Order penetrated Voldemort’s lair.  
  
A few quick diagnostic spells confirms your suspicions; there are very rare and powerful misdirection spells surrounding the thing, whatever it is. Your tests show that there is nothing in front of you on the floor—but when you reach out, you can feel the solid block, its spine tingling with magic. There is a flash of silverwhite in your vision, and suddenly you understand.  
  
Blood magic.  
  
You reach out your hand again, feeling for the intricate connections that bind the space together. Old, ancient blood magic, the kind that you only know about from viewing Dumbledore’s memories in one of his pensieves. You’re sweating now with the effort of fighting the wards, feeling the threads trickle into your mind and making your vision go white.  
  
Too late, you realize you’re on the verge of passing out. With the last of your strength you cast the emergency summoning spell as your hands go numb and everything goes black.  
  
::  
  
“ **No** , Ron, I will **not** let you go down there so you can ruin 6 months worth of work! Honestly..” You can hear the tired smile in Hermione’s voice as she peers down into the hole, trying to catch a glimpse of red hair. You’re surrounded by swarming aurors and Order members, waiting to hear from Ron if he’s found a way to get past the 16th layer of wards. You roll your eyes as you see the whomping willow seedling smack its branches into Ginny’s backside, hiding a smile as you hear the resulting squeak of outrage.  
  
Next to you, a pile of limbs and red hair flops down, raising a cloud of dust that clogs your lungs and sticks to the sweat running down your back. You’ve all shed your robes in favor of muggle work clothes, but even so it’s sweltering under the glass panes of the greenhouse. You can hear Ron mumbling something about “…bloody fucking Lucius Malfoy and his bloody fucking wards…” and tune out.  
  
It’s been six months since you passed out on the cold ground of the greenhouse in February and Hermione and the others came running and had you apparated to St. Mungos. Six months of calling in experts and searching obscure hidden libraries, six months of Hermione pioneering new arithmancy techniques and advanced physical magic in order to break the wards surrounding the thing. You’re still no closer to knowing what’s down there, but the Order has at least established that whatever it is, it was important enough for both Narcissa and Lucius to use blood magic to create an intricate, multilayered ward that’s stronger than has been seen in hundreds of years.  
  
“Curious, aren’t you mate?”  
  
You raise an eyebrow at Ron, who merely grins unrepentantly and examines his grime-filled finger nails. “Well, if you won’t admit to it, I bloody well will. What in Merlin’s name is so important that it needs sixteen layers of protective magic around it? Why not just send it to Siberia? Or better yet, why not keep it with you?”  
  
“Maybe he couldn’t carry it. He was pretty pathetic by the end.”  
  
Ron snorts “Pathetic is putting it nicely. When we found him he could barely support his own weight, remember? “  
  
“Mmm. Still had a mean Crucio, though.” You wince at the memory. “It wasn’t what I would call a pleasant experience.”  
  
Your usual banter is interrupted by a shout as the final ward gives way, pushing up clods of dirt underneath you as it goes. You hear someone whistle approvingly in the background, but you’re too busy running over to the hole to notice. Your heart slows a bit as you see Hermione grinning sheepishly from the bottom, wand out, covered head to toe in dirt and muck. You’re not surprised – these past few months have been good to her, and she’s regained some of her old spunk. It’s something the Hermione from your childhood would have done, and you crack one of your rare, true smiles.  
  
She brushes her hair off of her face and yells for you to come down. “Harry, I need you to get down here and help me run some diagnostic spells. Now that the wards are gone, the magical signature of whatever-this-is can be picked up. I think it’s another one of Lucius’ favorite toys – some underground network of rooms.” She wrinkles her nose and her forehead creases. “I hope we don't find any bodies.” She sighs. “Just when you think you’ve finally cleaned up the mess those bloody Death Eaters left..” You’re done climbing down the sides of the hole now, and you put a hand on her shoulder.  
  
“You worry about the spells and **I'll** worry about whatever’s in there, okay?”  
  
She nods, biting her lip, and proceeds to start with the first of the scanning spells. You, meanwhile, are on your knees, running your hands over the crumbling dirt walls of the pit, trying to find an entrance to this supposed room.  
  
An hour later, you’re still covered in dirt, and there’s no sign of anything. You pause to take off your glasses and wipe the sweat out of your eyes when you hear a low voice next to your ear.  
  
“Harry. I need you to check something for me. Cast _vitiae obscuro_ and tell me what you feel.”  
  
You can feel her trembling beside you. With a quick look up – there’s no one watching, the entire crew having more important things to do than watch you two work – you take out your wand and murmur the spell.  
  
At first there’s nothing, just the comfortable background buzz of the plants in the greenhouse. But then…  
  
You drop your wand and whirl around to face Hermione. Her eyes are wide and you can see her heart pounding in her chest.  
  
“Harry, there’s someone down here. And they’re _alive_.”  
  
::  
  
In defensive formation, you make your way along the passage; it’s cold down here, far below the surface. The dirt of the passageway walls feels cold and clammy on your back and neck – the sweat that cooled your body earlier in the day only makes you shiver now. It’s been so long since you’ve done this, but your body instinctively knows what to do, how to move; after all, you’re the Boy Who Lived, the wizarding world’s trained puppet and savior.  
  
If there’s one thing you know how to do, it’s kill.  
  
You grimace as your back scrapes along a sharp rock sticking out from the wall. They trained you well; you make no sounds of pain as it slices through your skin, and no noise as you motion to Ron to avoid it. You ignore the blood soaking through your thin shirt and move on, doubling back and allowing Ron, Hermione, and Seamus to take the lead and assume the offensive positions needed to cover you. Behind you, Ginny’s in control of the back-up forces – 15 of the country’s top aurors and operatives. You wish you had Remus, or Snape, or even Minerva to back you up, but thanks to Malfoy, you have almost no senior operatives left. Tonks survived, and Bill Weasley, but they’re missing arms and legs and aren’t much use to you anymore.  
  
Something inside you wonders when you started measuring the value of your friends lives so callously.  
  
You grip your wand tighter and keep going. There’s a door ahead, and you signal to Ron to tell Ginny to bring up the back-up crew. Hermione, covered by Seamus, is already hard at work disabling the defenses. Now that the main protective wards have fallen, these perfunctory ones go quickly. You’re standing on one side of the doorway as she works and she catches your eye; you both know that whatever is in there is alive, and probably prepared to put up a fight. You brace yourself as you move into offensive formation, wands at the ready, muscles tensed.  
  
But there’s something pushing at the back of your mind, something strong – it’s been taking shape ever since you found this tunnel, pulsing with white light and long forgotten memories. It feels like your brain is cloudy and wet, trying to trudge through heavy fog. These memories are from before the war, the ones you don’t like to remember. You’ve managed to make your memories of the war --battles and grime and death-- clinical, you can remember them in terms of strategic gains and losses instead of how many friend’s bodies you carried off the battlefield. But Sirius, Cedric…with them, you don’t have that luxury. With them, there was no strategy, no way of understanding it.  
  
With them, it was just cold-blooded murder.  
  
You grit your teeth as the door swings open, feeling the blood and magic pulsing hot in your veins—but your entire body freezes as you catch a glimpse of the body inside, and the memories explode inside your mind with the force of a hurricane. You can’t breathe, you can feel panic clawing at your windpipe and next to you hear Hermione bite back a scream.  
  
 _There was a boy.  
  
A man.  
  
Draco Malfoy._  
  
 **II. Found**  
  
  
“…How?”  
  
You turn from staring out the picture windows overlooking the lawn of Malfoy Manor. Your head aches from the stress and from the look of it, Hermione’s isn’t doing so good either.  
  
“How what?”  
  
She walks over to you and looks up into your eyes. “How did we forget? How did he do it?”  
  
“Harry, _how do you make the entire world forget a person_?”  
  
You sigh, and scrub your face with your hands.  
  
“I don’t know, Hermione. Maybe he learned some spell from Voldemort. Knowing Lucius, maybe he sacrificed the blood of virgin house-elves under the full moon to keep his son alive. You know I don’t have any idea how he did it.”  
  
She nestles in close to you, her arms around you, her hair brushing your cheek. She stares out the open window across the lawn, magically lit again by rows of floating lamps. Because of the necessity and complications of caring for someone who was perpetually kept in suspended animation for years, you’ve re-opened Malfoy manor. It wasn’t your choice, but the crew from St Mungo’s adamantly refused to apparate him, on the grounds that it might upset the delicate balance of magic keeping him alive. It’s intensely odd to be caring for a Malfoy, and stranger still to realize that somehow, _you forgot that Draco existed_. Your brain still feels disjoined, like it did long ago after Snape’s Occulmency lessons and you hadn’t yet learned how to patch yourself back together.  
  
“The hard part is having to accept that that….monster was human. I don’t want to think about Lucius caring for anyone, or giving up something to save his son.” You can hear her gritting her teeth as she speaks. “He killed our friends. He kept the war going long after Voldemort was gone. He kept pet muggles for his own private torture chamber, for Merlin’s sake! But this…”  
  
You stroke her hair and stare out into the starlight.  
  
And wonder if that monster has been re-born.  
  
::  
  
“Draco…”  
  
 _Your face hits the stone wall and you snarl, feeling the warm gush of blood on your lips as you launch yourself over towards him. You hear a crack as his head hits the wall and hope briefly that you didn’t kill him – you wouldn’t want to have to deal with Lucius, after all. Draco looks up at you as a trickle of blood travels down his forehead, eyes dark and sharp and glittering – he’s breathing heavy, great gasping breaths that rock his slim body against yours, moist air from his lips brushing at yours—and then he’s claiming you, pushing you back and down onto the floor, thrusting into you and biting and it feels too good for you to care that you’re not supposed to be doing this…  
  
a flash of white blond hair brushes up against your thighs and you laugh, rocking your hips impatiently. Draco smirks and drags his tongue lightly from base to tip of your erection, stopping to lap up the pre-cum that's oozing from the tip and feeling your body tremble underneath him. “Impatient tonight, aren’t we…” he murmurs as you whimper and thrust your hips up weakly, fighting against his deceptively strong grip on your hips. He flicks his eyes up to meet yours as he takes all of you in his mouth – you can see his throat muscles moving, drops of saliva escaping his mouth and pooling on your stomach and in your dark curls. Draco’s all whitehotlight, dangerous and ultraviolet, and you never, ever want him to stop fucking you…  
  
Ron’s face, pushed close to yours, flicks of spittle and blood smearing your glasses as he tells you through broken teeth that there was an explosion, that someone had set off a muggle bomb in the lower dungeons…  
  
Painlightheat –ohgod--draco-- **fuck**_  
  
You wake up in a cold sweat, shaking and drenched. The memories come flying back – Lucius’ proud sneer, Draco’s hair caked with blood…  
  
 _Draco’s eyes looking into yours, unreadable as he whispered crucio …_  
  
You fall back on the bed, exhausted, and pass out.  
  
::  
  
“He’s awake.”  
  
“…What?”  
  
You roll over and squint at the figure hovering over you, wincing from the pain of the light slicing through the curtains. You hold up a hand to block out the sunbeams, cradling your aching head with the other. It’s barely sunrise, you feel like you got run over by a truck, and Hermione is glaring at you, your bed, and your morning erection.  
  
“ **Fuck!** Hermione…” You grab your jeans off the floor and throw them over your lap, conscious of the fact that you’re still tenting the fabric. She rolls her eyes as she shakes her hair down, running her ragged fingernails through her auburn curls, pausing to rip at a snarl.  
  
“Harry James Potter. I have known you for 15 years, and lived with you for more than half of that time. I have spent a week covered in mud and filth with you tracking a Death Eater camp. I have seen you and Ron naked as much as I’ve seen myself, if not more.” She smirks at you through the knot she’s untangling. “You could have a morning erection the size of China and I’d still tell you it was small and kick you out of bed. C’mon, we’re wasting time.”  
  
You roll your eyes and chuck the jeans at her, hearing her shriek as you search on the floor for some underwear that was washed within the last month or so. You’re all still at the manor, so professional dress isn’t necessary, and would probably even be in the way. Your hand closes on some ripped jeans and a black t-shirt, which you hurriedly throw on, all the while snickering at Hermione, who is gaily waving her arse in the air as she searches under the creaking bed for your other boot. The permanent staff assigned to the manor has been staying in the old servant’s quarters – although originally meant for house elves, with a few cleaning and stretching charms they’re comfortable enough. Hermione perches on the end of your unmade bed while you tie your laces and brush your teeth, filling you in on the various medical and psychological data already gleaned from her monitoring spells. She looks up from her clipboard as you enter the room, twisting her hair back into a neat bun and jamming a pencil through it. She grins as she takes in your unshaven face and hair, which you’ve never been able to tame.  
  
“Let’s go, scruffy. Just be happy I’ve already called downstairs for coffee.”  
  
::  
  
Draco is being kept in the master bedroom suite, as it is the largest in the entire manor, with its own bathroom, kitchenette for servants, and private dressing rooms. It saves your staff valuable time when they’re on duty, because they don’t have to leave the suite for anything except emergencies. You suspect that Ron’s taken more than his share of naps on the plush daybeds when he’s on shift. You have to admit, watching a patient who’s in permanent healing stasis isn’t the most exciting shift, so you can’t begrudge Ron a few naps now and then. Now, though, everyone is rushing around as you and Hermione climb the wide staircase. Melinda’s blond hair is pulled back in a messy French braid as she oversees the diagnostics, pausing to grin and wave at Hermione from across the long room. Someone has transfigured the heavy velvet drapes into sheer linen, opening up the room and letting soft light stream in through the huge rectangular windows that line the upper walls. In the center of the hurricane is Draco, looking small and pale in the large hospital bed. He’s breathing lightly, but steadily, and no one looks unduly concerned.  
  
You, on the other hand, can barely breathe. Your chest feels tight, and you suck in air like you’re drowning. Last night’s dreams come rushing back at all once, fragmentary and broken, like shards of glass in the end of a kaleidoscope. He’s so small and fragile, his skin almost translucent – Melinda’s been steadily exposing him to sunlight in larger and larger doses, both to raise the vitamin D in his blood and take away his albino-like complexion so that when he did wake up, it wouldn’t be with 2nd degree ultraviolet burns. You can’t even imagine what it must be like, even though you realize Draco wasn’t awake for any of it – 8 years under the ground, never seeing the sun, never moving or breathing or smiling or fucking. During his healing stasis St. Mungo’s recovery ward has been overseeing his therapy, intravenously giving him potions to replace lost muscle tone, clean out his system of toxins, slow his heart rate and help his metabolism. It seems to have worked – he looks much the same as you remember him, not the sickly, inhuman thing your team pulled out of that room almost 5 weeks ago.  
  
 _Remember him_. The thought, loosely pieced together in your mind, jolts you back to awareness – of the situation, of what you have to do. Because this isn’t just about you; you’re not here on some sort of twisted mercy mission, a friendly face for Draco to see when he wakes up. You’re here because the Ministry still wants answers, still needs a scapegoat to wipe all the blood on. It’s unfortunate that, with your history, it has to be you overseeing Draco’s “treatment” – but there isn’t anything you, or anyone can do about that. You’re the Ministry’s most senior operative in terms of rank, if not in seniority and experience. It’s your job, and the fact that you know exactly how Draco’s cheeks flush and his toes clench when he comes doesn’t change that.  
  
Draco moans and shifts a little in his oversized hospital bed, causing a flurry of activity that spreads like a small tumbleweed rolling through the room. You can feel the anticipation in the room, revealing itself in the tight grip of hands on plasticine coffee cups and the ragged cuticles on more than one junior operative.  
  
You take a deep breathe, steadying yourself for the days and weeks ahead.  
  
“First official contact with the patient may proceed.” You sneak a glance out of the corner of your eye at Melinda, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she prepares to adjust the life-support spells. You feel your mouth tense in response, forming itself into something closer to a grimace than a smile. “Wake him up, lads. Let’s see what he has to say.”  
  
::  
  
The screaming doesn’t stop. Nothing helps, not even when you force the palms of your hands so far into your cochlea you fear you’ve broken something irreplaceable. You would try tearing at your ears with your fingernails, but somehow they’ve been trimmed to a useless, utterly harmless length. It’s insanely bright, and the screaming is fucking splitting your skull open and maybe they’re drilling through your skull, because that would explain the horrible, pounding pressure. _Lightfuckohgod – bright, Merlin – my skull_ \- your memory is down to a single neural pathway, the images rapidly impaling themselves into your consciousness – _dark, rotten mold – air so foul you can’t move – horrible, gut-wrenching stasis, keeping you alive even when you screamed and clawed yourself, even when you tried to sever enough veins to bleed to death and only managed to inflict feeble scratches. Dark magic filling up your lungs, poisoning your very blood until, finally, you sank into blackness – knowing, even then, that you had not escaped –_  
  
It’s like being trapped underwater and bursting to the surface when the horrible noises in your ears finally stop. You gasp and scrabble frantically at the bed, trying to find anything to keep you upright and breathing. You don’t know where you are, and you can barely see – the light is blinding, and the witches and wizards surrounding you are nothing more than peachy, ambiguous blobs. Your throat feels raw and so you struggle to make a sound as something vile is forced down into your stomach, but you quickly realize that it’s some sort of powerful corrective healing potion, resolving your blurry eyesight into sharp images and soothing your aching throat. The room is abruptly cast into shadow, and you give a sigh of relief as the piercing pain from the light boring into your skull trails off.  
  
Wherever you are, you seem to be safe, for the moment. Your quick _leguilimens_ betrays only anxious concern and frustration, not malice. You aren’t in the hands of soldiers, then, or aurors – these minds feel young, unshaped, intellectually sound but emotionally immature. Apart from some faded memories of uncles or relatives, blunted by the passage of time, you can’t find any memories of the war, nothing to give you a clue as to what’s going on. They don’t look much older than you are, but you don’t recognize any of them…it’s strange, really.  
  
“Draco.” Your name phrased as a quiet statement, not a question. “Can you hear me?” you turn your head slowly, wincing at the pain and frustration of your long-atrophied muscles. You wonder, idly, how she knows your name.  
  
And then you freeze, because out of every single woman on this goddamn planet, it _has_ to be Miss Hermione-Fucking-Muggle-Loving-Know-It-All-Granger.  
  
Oh, Merlin. _Exactly_ how you wanted to wake up this morning.  
  
::  
  
Draco’s pressing his hands into his cheekbones, highlighting the delicate features enhanced, not obliterated by the passage of time. You feel odd, watching him like this through the enchanted one-way mirror, but he’s not stupid and you know he’s probably aware of the surveillance, even if he doesn’t know who’s watching. His reaction to Hermione’s presence had been something less than thrilled – you have to stifle a grin at the memory of his snarky retort to her anxious questioning. As far as you’re concerned, he’s lucky he didn’t get a smack across the face. Hermione keeps herself under control most of the time, but you’ve seen it happen before. She’s not above a little smack to get a prisoner’s attention.  
  
 _And according to Melinda, it carries over to the bedroom……_  
  
You sigh. You realize, of course, that there’s no way to separate modern Auror politics from the complicated questions of who’s sleeping with whom, but it’s not like it makes your job any easier. It’s a hazard of working any where, but in the stressful, closed world of Ministery operatives, fucking your partner is a good way of blowing off steam. You can understand what she sees in Melinda, of course – she’s focused and studious, but incredibly sexy on those rare occasions when she lets her hair down and relaxes. If she wasn’t gay, you’d definitely be part of her fan club. As it is, Hermione catches you checking out the sway of her girlfriend’s hips all too often. Usually she smacks you too, although probably not the way she smacks Melinda….  
  
Draco’s running his fingers through his hair now, stretching his long, lean body carefully. _Focus, Harry. You have a job to do. Fantasizing about your best friend’s kinky lesbian sex life is all well and good, but not now._  
  
Well, you have to admit it’s not just limited to Hermione. You’d be fantasizing about Ron’s sex life if he was here. One of those pesky downsides to spending your adolescence fighting a megalomaniacal psychotic nutcase was the lack of time able to spend jerking off. Occupational hazard, you think, as Draco slowly manages to walk across the room, in an effort to get his muscles moving again.  
  
 _Still has a nice bum, though_.  
  
You _really_ need to get laid.  
  



	2. Part III - Broken

  
Author's notes:

see Notes to Parts I & II

thank you so, so much to my lovely betas - Quill2006 and Superren. This might not be readable if it wasn't for them! 

* * *

**III. Broken**  
  
Before going to face Draco, however, you crack open a beer and pull out his case file. It’s best to be prepared, and hopefully the combination of the two will suffice.  
  
In terms of his file, there isn’t much to go on. There’s no direct, first-hand evidence of his participation in Death Eater activity during the war, but because of their masks that doesn’t mean much. He’s Lucius Malfoy’s son, after all; the war’s most notorious criminal besides Voldemort, the man responsible for numerous chilling deaths. It doesn’t take much imagination to paint Draco in his father’s image, especially with his temperamental personality. You personally won’t be much help either; although Draco warned you about the attack on Hogwarts, warned you about the _crucio_ that he knew he was going to have to cast to keep his cover, it doesn’t mean that after he disappeared he didn’t fall back in with his father’s crowd. And the only way to vouch for his innocence would be to reveal the nature of your relationship – something you want to avoid at any cost.  
  
Besides, it wouldn’t matter, anyway; once your status as lovers was public, any testimony you could give would be effectively thrown out. No, getting Draco off the hook rests on your former relationship being kept secret, and you being perceived as simply an Auror (and a famous one, at that) who has taken a special interest in the case because you believe in his innocence. The frustrating part is that there’s no one to prove it; everyone else that was there for the attack is dead or already gave their testimony under Veritaserum. If only you could find an eye-witness….someone who saw Draco, even after he supposedly disappeared, while he was sabotaging one of Voldemort’s missions. The problem is that he was never an officially sanctioned spy; only a select few knew of his true alliance, and beyond you, those connections were tenuous at best. You were the only one he trusted. And the only one who seems to be able to remember anything beyond the merest facts about him. The only one who remembers more and more every night, your fragmentary memory coalescing together a little more each night.  
  
You sigh, looking up at the clock. It’s useless to put it off any more; besides, the sooner you get it over with, the sooner you can get back here and drink yourself into oblivion. You finish your beer in one long gulp, tossing it towards the recycling bin and then wincing at the sound of glass breaking.  
  
You never had good aim on the best of days.  
  
::  
  
“Potter.”  
  
Draco’s always had a unique way of saying your name, of rolling the syllables on his tongue and making it sound like a blessing and a curse all at once. Even here, even now, sitting on his hospital cot in pajamas, he can make you feel underdressed and pathetic. It’s something about the aristocratic lines of his face, the pale hollows under his cheekbones that say, _I have more money than Gringotts can even dream of_. He reaches up to smooth his long hair out of his face, twisting it back with nervous fingers. It’s an anxious habit that he’s never been able to shake – whenever he’s unsettled, he can’t stop playing with his hair. Seeing him do it now makes something unclench in your chest.  
  
God, you’ve missed him.  
  
You nod at him and sit down in the chair across from him. You have Hermione’s ubiquitous clipboard – she shoved it into your hands as you opened the door – but you put it down, unwilling or unable to distract yourself from Draco’s presence.  
  
“So…” Inwardly, you wince. _Lame, Potter. Lame._  
  
He merely raises one perfect eyebrow at you, smirking slightly at your obvious lack of words.  
  
You try again. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“Fine, Potter, just fine. Being buried alive for 8 years was always my idea of a good time.”  
  
“But are you – I mean…”  
  
“Tired? Yes. Feeling like complete and utter shite? Very much so. Dying for a proper bath, a good meal, and a handjob? Yes. But somehow I don’t think you came in here to discuss my burning need to wank.”  
  
You swallow. Your jeans are suddenly uncomfortably tight, and you can almost feel the blood rushing south from your head to your cock. _Not good. Get a grip, Potter. He’s the one who’s been in a coma for 8 years, not you. You can handle this._  
  
“I – Yes. I mean, no, I didn’t come in here to discuss your, ah,” you cough and look away “—personal habits.” You assume your “Professional Harry Potter” tone and pull your clipboard onto your lap, because you realize that you’re rapidly loosing control of the situation and keep get distracted by the sight of a delicate collarbone peeking through the hospital gown, or the smooth, muscular legs with their light blond hair… _Right, what was I thinking about again?_  
  
You glance down at Hermione’s notes. “Look, you’ve already been briefed on the war, the current political situation in the Ministry of Magic, the fall of Voldemort, and all that.” You flip a page. “It is my duty to inform you that you are being held under the Dark Magic Protections and Securities Act on suspicion of suspected Death Eater activity . You will be allowed to remain at the manor, on the condition that an Auror team is in place to oversee your interrogation and, if necessary, subsequent trial, and that Malfoy Manor will be warded and under direct supervision by the ministry. Your wand will be taken and a replacement one will be given to you during the supervision period.” You flip the pages back over, sighing as you do so.  
  
“Off the record, I don’t really know whose side you were on during the War, and I don't really give a shite.” He glares at you, and you feel like a bastard for even saying it, but it’s true. To a point. Out of everyone, you’re the person who knows the most about his movements and allegiances during the war, which probably had something to do with the fact that you spent a large amount of time on your knees. But even you don’t know everything, and even you don’t have any proof that he wasn’t a double agent.  
  
Besides, this is going to be a lot easier for both of you if you can just keep him angry and off-balance.  
  
 _That’s right, Potter. You coward.  
  
Just keep telling yourself that._  
  
You clear your throat. “Look. I’ll make it simple. All of the Death Eaters are dead or in Azkaban. Minister Maplethorpe is in the middle of a public relations crisis over embezzlement at Gringotts and for taking part in some particularly unsavory activities with a kept veela. Officially, you’re listed as dead. When this breaks, they’re going to try to paint you as a scapegoat so they can wash the blood off their hands and bury the Minister’s little infidelities in the process.”  
  
Draco scowls at you. “Why are you telling me this? Why don’t you people just Avada Kedavra me and get it over with? No muss, no fuss, and you even get a pretty green glow to your complexion.”  
  
 _Because you’re alive. Because I’ve been going insane for 8 years trying to find out what happened to you. Because I can’t believe your father managed to take away even your memory from me.  
  
Because I’ve dreamt about you every night since we found you._  
  
But what comes out of your mouth is, “That’s illegal and you know it.”  
  
“Well, you’re fucking Saint Potter, aren’t you? A little pesky thing like breaking the law has never held you back before.”  
  
“Stop it, Draco.”  
  
“Stop what? You’re the one who’s threatening me.”  
  
“No, I’m not.” You stand up to leave, trying to keep your composure. “I’m the one who’s reading what they bloody tell me to read off this little piece of paper, and I’m the one who’s going to be overseeing your case, and I’m the one who can get you out of this, so you better fucking appreciate it.”  
  
You slam the door behind you, cutting off Draco’s snappy retort.  
  
 _I’m the one who still cares about you, even though right now I have no idea why._  
  
::  
  
You’re tossing and turning on the bed, the sweat dripping into your eyes as you clench your muscles and grind your teeth.  
  
 _“Potter…”  
  
He sneers at you from across the empty classroom, blond hair long and unkempt. It’s fine and silky and you would have no idea what it feels like if you hadn’t just managed to pull some out in your latest altercation. Draco has a split lip and what looks like the beginnings of a black eye, making his high cheekbones stand out even more. You like him better like this – broken and imperfect, looking human and fallible instead of cold and inhuman like his father.  
  
You wince as you move your shoulder, favoring your left side and trying to find a comfortable position to write. Neither of you are very big – if you were honest with yourself, you’d use the word scrawny – but you both are much stronger than you look and he’s definitely done a number on your shoulder and collarbone this time. You can already see the bruise peeking out of the collar of your now-ripped shirt, turning a light purple. It will be green and black by tonight, and Ron and Hermione are going to kill you. You can already recite the familiar speech by heart; Voldemort is loose and planning an attack, and you have priorities, and you can’t afford any more of these careless injuries if you’re going to be strong enough to fight him.  
  
But there’s something about the petulant, sulking boy in the corner that you find it impossible to stay away from. And if his actions are any indication, the feeling is mutual. Rationally, you know it’s just such a waste – there’s no point in fighting like this, not when the odds are that you’ll both be dead in six months, anyway. But there’s something about watching the colour rise on his cheeks when you taunt him, about feeling the satisfying crack when you land a good punch, about the sharp stabs of pain that run up your sides when he makes it through your defenses that you’re positively addicted to. It’s sick and twisted and Ron and Hermione have said as much, but as far as you’re concerned, if you’re going to die to save the world you’re allowed a few indulgences.  
  
And if those indulgences are things like watching Draco Malfoy bleed and bruise and writhe underneath you instead of something normal like drinking smuggled Firewhiskey, then it’s no one’s business but your own.  
  
Snape comes striding in, glaring and radiating distaste. You regard him dispassionately – once he might have been able to make you angry, but that was a long time ago. Your skin is too thick with scars – both literally and figuratively – for him to be anything more than a passing annoyance. Draco ducks his head, trying to hide his face behind his curtain of tangled hair. You don’t bother, making eye contact with the head of Slytherin House and staring back until he looks away. You both know that as much as he hates you, if it comes down to it he will die for you. Ever since that Occulmency lesson 3 weeks ago when you finally overcame his defenses and broke through his shields only to view that memory, he pronounced your training finished and refuses to meet your gaze. Now, nothing he can say or do will scare you. He’s lost any power he ever had over you, to be replaced by this uneasy truce. It’s not a coalition of equals, not exactly, but you don’t feel a need to watch your back as much as you did before.  
  
Which is why this punishment is a joke, really. You’re only here to watch Draco squirm, because you and Snape both know that if you walked out, he would have no power to make you come back. But you need to continue the facade of being a normal student, if only to convince Voldemort of your weakness, to lure him in. The other Gryffindors write your essays and complete your homework, at the request of Dumbledore himself. You go to class and pretend to work, but if anyone actually broke the misdirection spells surrounding your papers, they’d see that what you’re studying is a far cry from how to transfigure furniture and charm Cornish Pixies. Supposedly, right now you’re researching the effects of lavender oil and flaxseed on sleeping draughts, but while Draco might be grudgingly paging through 1001 Potions Ingredients and Distillations, you’re really reading a flaking, worm-eaten copy of _Thee Unforgiveble Kurses_.  
  
Snape leaves you two alone in the cold classroom after gathering his papers and lighting a fire in the fireplace. It’s not out of any misguided sense of thoughtfulness; it’s because the slick stone walls drip with moisture from outside during the winters, and he needs to keep his perishable ingredients from going off before they can be used. Nevertheless, the warm, dry heat feels good, and you move your things in front of the fire, taking off your cloak and spreading it on the chilled ground to protect the ancient tome on your lap from getting damp. Draco’s still huddled in the back of the room and you roll your eyes. As if you’re really going to touch him right now with the shape you’re both in.  
  
You always wait a day, at least.  
  
“Malfoy.” You throw the word over your shoulder like something distasteful. “Stop being a stubborn prick and come sit by the fire. I’m not going to touch you. I have better things to do.”  
  
He tries to leer at you, but he’s shivering, so instead of looking intimidating he just looks pathetic. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you Potter? Can’t get enough of me, can you?”  
  
You just shrug, wincing as you remember your injured shoulder. “Whatever, Malfoy. You can freeze to death for all I care.”  
  
You lick your finger and turn the page, mentally beginning to count. One, two…five, six…nine, ten…You hear the screech of a chair being pushed back, and you fight to keep the smirk off your face.  
  
He sits down as far away from you as possible while still being able to get maximum heat from the fire. Despite his attempts to tame it, his hair is still a tangled mess from when you twisted your hands in it so you could slam his head against the wall. It falls over his face, strands of hair casting thin shadows in the warm glare of the fire.  
  
He’s strangely beautiful like this, and the thought surprises you with its intensity. Attraction to other boys is nothing new for you, but this is the first time you’ve felt an overwhelming need to act on it, if only because you’re so familiar with how Draco feels under your hands already. You bite your lip and try to focus on the page, but the words swim in front of you. The pain from your shoulder and neck is making your head ache.  
  
You make your decision a fraction of a second before you reach out to him with your good arm, tangling your fingers in his long hair and roughly yanking him over to you. He opens his mouth to protest and you can feel his body tensing to hit you but you simply ignore it, thrusting your tongue into his mouth and tugging him closer. You can taste the tang of the blood on his lips, and you swipe your tongue lightly over the cut, feeling him shake. He’s frozen to the spot and you can feel his heart pounding against yours as you kiss him, forcing him to open up under your assault.  
  
Draco tastes like blood and sweat and everything you’re not allowed to want, everything dark and powerful and hateful that you keep hidden below the surface.  
  
It’s heaven.  
  
It’s over too soon, when he finally pulls away and lands a solid punch to your right temple. The impact sends your neck and shoulder into spasms, and he shoves you to the floor before grabbing his things and running out the door.  
  
You just smile and lick your lips, staring after him._  
  
::  
  
You stand at the top of the Malfoys’ grand staircase that night, staring down at the figures milling about below. It’s been a long day; you haven’t been sleeping right since Draco woke up. You’re tired and irritable and if it wasn’t for Hermione and the prospect of seeing Ron and Aedan, you wouldn’t even be here right now.  
  
And your presence here also has absolutely nothing to do with hoping in the back of your mind that Draco might show up, even though he sneered and insulted you when you mentioned it through clenched teeth.  
  
Of course not.  
  
As usual, it’s one of Hermione’s brilliant ideas. Tensions have been running high ever since Draco woke up last week, and it’s been one headache after another as the extra medical and ministry personnel prepares to return to St. Mungo’s and London. Hermione’s idea to throw leaving ball was met with relief by you, and almost every other member of the team – after all, you’ve been working with these people day in and day out for almost 2 months now, and you’re sorry to see many of them go. It’s more for the junior operatives than anyone else, since you, Hermione, Melinda, and a small group of others will be staying here to watch after Draco. But it’s a nice excuse to get plastered, and as Melinda pointed out, it’s a shame not to put a ballroom as beautiful as the Malfoys’ to good use. People have been flooing in all night long, so you’re oddly glad that Hermione spent an hour tearing through your wardrobe, convincing you that you really should wear something other than your favorite ripped jeans. You gave in, acceding to shaving, the black jumper, and the trousers but you drew the line at dress shoes – you hate the bloody things, and as you pointed out to her, you need to be able to run in case of an emergency. She’d merely raised an eyebrow and pointed to her own heels, to which you replied that at least one of you had to be prepared.  
  
Your cheek still hurts a little from the playful smack, but it was worth it. Especially when you get to tell Ron about it later on. He’s always been ahead of you on the tally of who-rates-more-smacks from Hermione, but since he was reassigned and it’s just you and her, you’ve been rapidly moving up in the count.  
  
Everyone under the age of 40 who works for the ministry seems to be here tonight, along with their friends and significant others. You can see Ron’s ginger head towering over the crowd, his arm protectively around Cosette. You roll your eyes, remembering Ron’s crush on Fleur in your fourth year – he’s never really gotten over his thing for French women. Although really, Cosette and Fleur are about as different as any two people can be – Cosette’s cocoa-coloured skin and short, dark hair make her look nothing like the tri-wizard competitor. You can see the two of them standing around with Hermione and Melinda, and your smirk widens. The relationship between Hermione and Cosette has always been a little shaky, which you privately chalk up to Ron and Hermione’s history together. Melinda’s also hinted to you that Hermione feels insecure around her, probably because of her impeccable grooming compared to Hermione’s haphazard attempts. You’ve both agreed that you have no idea how someone as glamorous as Cosette ended up with Ron, but as she seems to adore him, you don’t have any complaints.  
  
At least he’s getting shagged regularly. Unlike you.  
  
A quick tap on the shoulder turns you around, and you come face to face with Aedan Niall. His wide hazel eyes are a little glazed over, but he’s Irish, so you figure he’s probably able to hold his liquor. He smiles at you, clapping you on the back and telling you it’s been far too long. His touch sends a warm flush up your spine and you’re reminded again of how cute he is.  
  
Oh, and how bloody young he is. And how off-limits. That too.  
  
Aedan was assigned to your division when he was just a teenager, fresh out of training and still reeling from having to watch his mother and sister die during the war. He’s from an old Irish pureblood family, but his parents sided with Dumbledore and he was forced to watch them tortured and killed by death eaters when he was barely fifteen. He joined up with the Order as soon as he turned 17, full of rage and needing to avenge their deaths. He’s obviously cooled down some in the three years you’ve known him since then, but you know from working with him that he still has a quick temper. Luckily he has the reflexes to match, which has gotten you out of some sticky situations. He was transferred away when Draco was found to take the place of a field agent who was also a Healer, but now that Draco’s awake and functional, he’s back to being the assistant head of Intelligence and Reconnaissance, under Ginny. Since you’re the head of the Recovery department – or as Ron has nicknamed it, the “shite-jobs-that-no-one-wants” department – and you’re technically his boss, he’s usually around your office a good bit. In reality, you still find it bizarre that you’re anyone’s boss, let alone Ginny and Hermione’s. You’ve argued with the ministry time and time again that Recovery shouldn’t be higher up in the hierarchy than the Curse-Breaking department, because everyone knows that Hermione’s earned the spot more than you have. But Maplethorpe’s government refuses to demote you, and for now you just have to settle for letting her tell you what to wear, instead of what you should be recovering or un-contaminating.  
  
You have to admit, though that the organizational chain runs pretty smoothly – Ginny’s team takes care of the background information, Hermione’s team does the actual spellwork, and Melinda’s team is always available as backup, even if no one gets injured on a particular assignment. Ron, of course, is a senior field operative and in a totally different Auror department, which is probably for the best. He’d hex your bullocks off in a second if you ever tried to order him around, and you both know it.  
  
You realize you’ve been off in your own little world, and that Aedan has been talking to you. You’re starting to think you’re a little more drunk than you realized.  
  
“….an’ so I says, ‘fuck you Finnegan,’ I says, ‘I’m not taking this shite from you even if you are my boss.’” He winces at the memory. “That didn’t go over too well.”  
  
You nod sympathetically. The howler Seamus sent you after that little incident is still behind the bookcase, from when you chucked it across the room and it got lodged in between the shelves and the wall.  
  
“Anyway. It’s good to be back. Never liked Scotland anyhow.”  
  
He grins at you. You grin back. It’s hard not to. He’s drunk and friendly, and you’ve wanted to shag his brains out since he was seventeen.  
  
He takes another long drag of his unidentified pint – you know it’s not Guinness, because contrary to all Irish stereotypes, he hates the stuff. “So, what’s the deal with this mysterious Malfoy business, then? It was above my clearance level when this whole thing began, and then I got shipped off to Edinburgh without a word of explanation. Don’t tell me you’ve found another one of his toys?”  
  
You grimace. “No. It’s a bit more complicated than that.”  
  
He sips his drink slowly, waiting for you talk. There’s a bit of foam at the corner of his mouth and you have to fight the urge not to lean over and lick it off.  
  
“It’s…look, I know this will sound incredible. I’ve been dealing with it for almost two months, and sometimes even I don’t believe it.”  
  
You look at him through your lashes, trying to gauge his reaction. It’s never a good idea to give someone upsetting news when they’re trolleyed, but he still looks fairly sober.  
  
“But…Lucius Malfoy had a son.” He raises both his eyebrows in surprise.  
  
“I know. You’ve never heard of him. And until we found him, no one had. But that’s the part that’s insane, not just that we found him alive after 8 years. What’s insane is that Ron, Hermione, Ginny…all of us went to school with him.” You hear an odd noise and look up just in time to see Aedan choke on his pint. You slap his back, trying to help him swallow the absurdly large mouthful that he took out of surprise. He steps back, gasping and stumbles a bit, and you reach out an arm so that he doesn’t go careening down the stairs or over the balcony. He leans in to your touch. You try not to shiver. You’re belatedly beginning to remember exactly why you don’t drink with Aedan. Namely, that you want to shag him through a wall and he’s five years younger than you, you’re his boss, and oh, you’re not even sure if he likes men.  
  
 _Right. Focus._  
  
He’s still coughing, but he’s standing on his own now. “But…how? How is that even possible?”  
  
“That’s the issue. All of us…I mean, we saw him every day of our lives, for 7 years. He was a bloody pain in the arse, let me tell you. But Lucius somehow managed to not only hide him away from the world, but to hide everyone’s memories of him as well. Until we found him and the spell was broken, it was as if he never existed.” You turn away, trying to hide your slight smile at the thought of how, exactly, Draco was a pain in your arse in particular. “And now we have to figure out what to do with him.”  
  
Aedan nods, still looking stunned. “So he was hidden for all of the war?”  
  
You look at him, sizing him up, trying to decided how much to reveal. It’s above his clearance level, but that’s never exactly stopped you before. In the end, you settle for a few hints. He’s a quick lad, after all.  
  
“Most of it.”  
  
“Was Lucius hiding him from Voldemort?”  
  
“We think so.”  
  
“Oh.” He bites his lower lip for a moment, thinking. You hope to Merlin that he doesn’t know how much you want to do the same. He looks around quickly, and then leans in closer, lowering his voice. “Let me guess. He was one of the hidden undercover agents, wasn’t he? The ones who were never identified? And then all those files went missing?”  
  
You knew there was a reason you kept him in your department. You nod. “And he’s a Malfoy.”  
  
Aedan rolls his eyes. “Christ Almighty. You have your work cut out for you.”  
  
You give him a stern look. “You do realize that’s confidential information, and if I find it’s been leaked I’ll personally reassign you to a desk job.” You pause. “In Siberia.”  
  
He nods emphatically and your body relaxes a bit, but you tense back up again when you see Aedan suddenly go white. You have a sinking feeling that you know exactly who’s causing that kind of reaction. There’s no one else here with the white-blond hair you can see out of the corner of your eye, after all. You try not to roll your eyes as you turn around.  
  
“Hello, Draco. Draco, this is Aedan Niall. He’s Ginny’s second in command in Reconnaissance.”  
  
Draco reaches out to shake Aeden’s hand, moving in closer than perhaps strictly necessary. He smiles faintly, sizing up Aedan with his eyes. You realize that you forgot Draco’s a legilimens, and that he’s probably digging through Aedan’s memories as you stand there. Unlike the rest of the team, Aedan is young enough to have missed the mandatory Occulmency training you all went through at the beginning of the war. Luckily, he’s also low enough on the totem pole that you don’t think there’s anything too important for Draco to find.  
  
You sigh. Another thing to add to the to-do-list. _Item 37: Teach Aedan how to shield his thoughts from lascivious, overly attractive blonds_.  
  
Either way, Draco has that familiar predatory gleam in his eye as he sizes up Aedan, and your glass is empty, so you decided it’s high time to mix yourself another cocktail and find Draco’s chaperone, a mid-level witch in Hermione’s department named Slavia. It would be idiotic to let someone with Draco’s talents wander around a Ministry party like this without a guard – besides being a legilimens, he’s skilled in everything from wandless magic to dark curses. You’re betting he won’t risk an Unforgivable with so many witnesses, but there are several lesser known variants of the Imperius curse that he could cast and get away with. Slavia’s already been briefed by Hermione and she’s top-notch, so you’re not too concerned. They’ll hate each other, of course – Slavia’s parents raised her in a commune in (English hippy town here), which is how she got stuck with a name like Yugoslavia Pace Miller. You can’t wait to see his horrified face once he sees her dreadlocks. It’s not like he has a choice in the matter, though, so you’re looking forward to drinking your gin and tonic, mingling, and watching him squirm.  
  
::  
  
“So, who’s the blond?” Colette raises an elegant eyebrow at you over her cosmopolitan. You stir your drink, wondering how to respond. She’s not even remotely cleared for that sort of information – hell, she doesn’t even work for the Ministry -- but she’s dating Ron, and everyone knows he’s awful at keeping his mouth shut. It’s probably one of the main reasons he’s in something like field agency, where he can bitch and moan all he wants and no one but the other aurors and passing wildlife will hear it.  
  
And Collette, of course. Ron’s an open book after he comes. Not that you ever took advantage of that to get the latest dirt on Hermione and Ginny back at Hogwarts. Of course not. It’s not your fault that he used to wank, and then fall asleep right afterwards.  
Or that he used to talk in his sleep.  
  
Hermione comes to your rescue as you’re still trying to figure out a way to respond that won’t cost you your job or Collette’s friendship. “He’s the reason we’re all still stuck in this hellhole. And the reason we’re being permanently reassigned here for the next six months.”  
  
Collette frowns as she takes in the ornate ballroom. “It doesn’t look that bad to me.”  
  
Hermione gives her a significant look. “This mansion has belonged to the Malfoy family for generations. I don’t think I need to spell it out for you.”  
  
She nods, looking suitably chastised. “Of course.”  
  
Hermione turns to you. “Speaking of being reassigned, when are you going home to pick up Lily and break the news to Neville that he gets to live at your place rent-free for the next six months?” You bite your lip, thinking. You hope belatedly that you didn’t break the skin; the alcohol’s definitely starting to go to your head. It’s getting a bit hard to feel your extremities. You should probably ease off on the gin.  
  
“Tomorrow, I think. Everyone will be involved in moving anyway, so I’ll go pick up Lily and her things and grab some more clothes. It’s going to be a bitch to get her out here, though. Why she picked me to adopt her, I’ll never know.” You shake your head.  
  
Melinda’s voice surprises you, the sound of her voice coming from just behind your left ear. “Why, Harry. Talking about the love of your life, again?” You grin at her as she comes to stand next to Hermione on your left.  
  
“That’s me. Savior of the Wizarding World, and the only person warming my bed at night has four legs and a tail.”  
  
She wrinkles her nose. “And a god-awful meow that sounds like someone’s murdering children.”  
  
“That too. Plus, she’s not a magical creature, so I can’t floo her out here. She’s only a baby and I’m afraid to think what it would do to her nervous system.”  
  
“I doubt you could make her any more wired that she already is” says Hermione wryly.  
  
“Hey, it’s not my fault Crookshanks and her didn’t get along.”  
  
“Harry, that little monster claws everything in sight, not just Crookshanks.”  
  
“Except for me,” you remind her. “Probably because she thinks someone else has already gotten there first.” You point to your scar, faded but still visible on your forehead.  
  
Everyone laughs, and Collette’s smile widens as she notices Ron’s tall frame over your shoulder, making his way back to the group from kissing arse with his superiors. He rolls his eyes as he nears the group, making a rude gesture towards the group of Ministry officials in the corner. Hermione giggles, swatting at his hand, which is thankfully hidden by your collective bodies.  
  
“I hate those bloody pricks,” he complains to you, chugging his pint with barely disguised frustration. “Fucking politics. They’ve never been out of their cozy little London offices and they’re trying to tell me how to do my job? Fuck ‘em.”  
  
Collette grins up at him during his tirade, cozying up to his side. “You came over just in time to interrupt our fascinating conversation about Harry’s kitten.”  
  
He smirks at you. “Harry, how you ended up with that mangy stray is beyond me.”  
  
“She’s not mangy!” you protest, feeling offended. “She’s….special.”  
  
“Yeah. Right.” he snorts and shoots you a long-suffering look. “Anyway. I think you should set her loose in Draco’s rooms. Teach that snotty little bastard a lesson.”  
  
You resist the urge to roll your eyes at Ron’s blatant lack of discretion concerning Draco. _Great job, Ron. Thanks. Not that Hermione and I were trying to keep our jobs, or anything_. You shrug, deciding to just let it go. Collette’s never spilled anything before, so you should probably trust her by now.  
  
“Who’s Draco?” she asks Ron, looking confused.  
  
Hermione grins mischievously. “The blond you were admiring earlier.”  
  
“What?!” Ron shoots Draco a murderous glance across the room. You just smirk, deciding to pull some rank and leave Hermione to figure out the situation. Really, it’s her own fault she decided to bring that up and make Ron go into his ‘jealous, overprotective bastard’ mode.  
  
“Cheers, mates.” You tip your glass up, draining the last bit of alcohol from the bottom of the tumbler. “I need to go relieve Slavia and put the princess to bed.” Ginny’s the one who thought up the nickname for Draco, and it’s rapidly catching on. You step back from the group, catching Slavia’s eye across the ballroom and motioning her over to meet you at the side door.  
  
Slavia trails behind Draco as they walk towards you, her hand unobtrusively on her wand. She looks bored and quite ready to go off-duty and get sloshed. She leans in just long enough to tell you that everything is fine, give you a quick peck on the cheek, and turns to leave.  
  
You steer Draco up the side stairway with your body, concentrating perhaps a little more than normal on where, exactly, the stairs are underneath your feet. You can hear Draco muttering in your ear about ‘having to use the bloody servants’ stairway in my own house like a common house elf,’ but you just tune him out and keep a tight grip on his forearm. You can feel the muscles shifting under his skin as he clenches his fist in idle frustration, and it’s distracting. Add to that the fact that as you make your way away from the main ballroom you’re increasingly alone, and you’re starting to think that maybe escorting Draco to his quarters by yourself wasn’t such a great idea after all.  
  
“So, Potter.” You don’t have to even look up to see the sneer that’s pasted on his face like bizarre party mask. “Lovely little party you've got going on in my house this evening.”  
  
You sigh tiredly. “I don’t want to argue with you about this, Draco. It was Hermione’s idea, and you know Malfoy Manor is still technically property of the ministry. If you have a problem with it, I’ll remind you had a week to go through the proper Ministry channels to lodge a complaint.”  
  
“Oh, I wasn’t going to argue about the party with you, Potter.” His voice sounds deceptively calm, and you look over at him suspiciously.  
  
“No, I was actually going to congratulate you. Lovely bunch of Aurors you have working underneath you. Very lovely, indeed.” He leers at you. “In fact, I wouldn’t mind having some of them working beneath me.”  
  
You clench your jaw in frustration. You know exactly who he’s referring to, but you’re reluctant to take the bait. “Anyone in particular?”  
  
Draco smirks. “Oh, I don’t know. That lovely little Irish boy who seemed so very fond of you was quite pretty.” He stops abruptly and turns to face you, invading your space. He drops his voice to a whisper. “How old is he, Potter? 15? 18? Have you fucked him yet? Does he scream out your name when you make him come?” You can feel the words leave his mouth, sharp puffs of warm, wet air making your skin tingle. You bit your lip, feeling yourself harden in your trousers and trying to will it away. You want to punch him in the face for talking about Aedan like this, but Draco’s still talking - “…I bet you could tell me what those lips of his feel like around your cock. You always did like them young, didn’t you? Just like me.”  
  
He pauses, giving you a small smile. “Just like my father. Only he killed them afterwards.”  
  
You abandon any meager attempt at self-control as you grab him by the throat and shove him roughly into the wainscoting, watching in satisfaction as he winces and gasps for air. You’re both breathing heavily and you’re struck by how much this reminds you of your dream last night – the same old fucked up power play, the same lust for violence that he somehow manages to bring out in you. Right now, you want nothing more than to slam his skull against the wall until he’s bloody and insensate, crying and begging for mercy.  
  
It’s terrifying.  
  
You settle for increasing your grip on his throat as you lean in, whispering into his ear. “Draco, if I ever hear you talking about one of my employees like that again, I will personally see to it that your arse lands in Azkaban so fast you won’t even have time to smirk before there’s a Dementor sucking out your face.”  
  
“Trying to scare me, Potter? I hate to break it to you, but I’m a bit past that now, I’m afraid. Eight years underground can do that to a person.”  
  
You growl, shoving him into the wall one final time before letting him straighten back up. He raises one eyebrow at you while he fixes his hair. “And don’t think I didn’t catch that you called that little Irish twat your ‘employee’ instead of your friend. You haven’t fucked him, have you?” he shake his bemusedly at you while you stand there, still seething. “My, my, Harry. Are we losing our touch? No one want a piece of the Golden Boy now that he’s served his purpose?”  
  
You stay silent, refusing to give in to his taunting. Your head aches and you know you’re going to have to relive another one of those blasted memories tonight, when you’re finally allowed to pass out on your tiny, lumpy bed.  
  
“Good.” Draco pauses in front of his door, fumbling with the key and the lock. It takes him a few tries, and you realize he’s probably pretty sloshed as well. At least that explains why he’s being so infuriating tonight. He sneaks a quick look at you over his shoulder as he enters the room, just enough for you catch a glimpse of blond lashes and a cold smile. “Because if you’re not going to fuck him, I will.”  
  
He slams the door in your face, and you try not to scream.  
  
::  
  
 _Your face hits the stone wall and you snarl, feeling the warm gush of blood on your lips as you launch yourself over towards him. You’ve been waiting for this ever since last week, when you kissed him in the empty Potions classroom and felt his heart pounding as you lapped up the traces of blood from when you split his lip. You grab his hair like you did before – he really should cut it, it’s a disadvantage in these fights that happen every few days – and you hear a crack as his head hits the wall. You hope briefly that you didn’t kill him – you wouldn’t want to have to deal with Lucius, after all.  
  
You hate the man with a passion, but somehow Draco is different; he’s more human, more real. Draco looks up at you as a trickle of blood travels down his forehead, eyes dark and sharp and glittering – he’s breathing heavy, great gasping breaths that rock his slim body against yours, moist air from his lips brushing at yours—and then he’s claiming you, pushing you back and then down onto the floor, thrusting into you and biting and it feels too good for you to care that you’re not supposed to be doing this here, out in the hallway where anyone can see. You’ve been waiting for this and it’s just as good as you remembered it, just as dirty and wrong and wonderful and painful. His nails dig into your back, and if it wasn’t for your thin cotton t-shirt they’d probably be drawing blood. You’re content to let him take control this time – you started it, after all, and your shoulder still isn’t healed like it should be. You thrust up against him, feeling him suck in a sharp breath through your mouth. He bites down on your lip in response, hard, and you growl, yanking his hair away from his neck and sinking your teeth in. you’re both so fucking hard, and all you really want is to get somewhere alone, somewhere where you can scratch and claw that porcelain skin, someplace where he can bite you until you bleed…_  
  
You wake up gasping for air, clawing at the bed sheets. You can feel the sweat pouring off your body, the sheets tangled and matted around your body like Draco’s hair around your fingers that day 8 years ago. You fall back on the bed, feeling your chest rise and heart pound. You don't know what to call them, these things that keep invading your sleep – they aren’t nightmares, not by far, but neither are they dreams. They’re your memories, long repressed, except you’re not the one doing the repressing. Something has stolen them from you and it’s like your mind is determined to dredge them up, to remind yourself and piece together your life from the fragments. So much of what has happened to you in the past 25 years is gone – obliviated, forgotten, locked away so you won’t wake up screaming every night. But somewhere along the way, you’ve also lost these memories, the ones that you feel innately contain a key to who you’ve become.  
  
As painful as they are, almost brutal in their intensity, there’s something melancholy about your memories of Draco. It’s only ever in small flashes – a memory of warm skin under your fingers, a sneer melting into a smile – but there is something so immediate, so _real_ about the memories that they make your chest ache. As if you had managed to be really living, then, feeling and breathing and fucking and laughing, not moving this empty shell through the motions the way you do now.  
  
 _It’s sick, really_ , you think to yourself as you roll over and grab the glass of water off the nightstand. It’s sick because even when you wanted to slam Draco’s face into the wall earlier tonight, even when he was taunting you about Aedan, it’s still the most alive you’ve felt in years.  
  
::  
  
You slam the door, feeling a quick jolt of satisfaction when you hear the large picture windows rattle in their frames. You can’t believe Potter’s comment to you earlier – really, as if you gave a flying fuck what his pathetic friends did with the Manor. If it was up to you, you’d burn the place down in a heartbeat and laugh as you watched the beautiful rooms go up in flames. It’s what your father’s memory deserves.  
  
Merlin. Fucking Potter.  
  
That’s really all that’s been going through your mind for the past 24 hours, even as you wined and dined and tried very hard to keep yourself on your best behavior during their stupid party. You hate being on your best behavior, but even you’re not stupid enough not to realize that pissing off an entire room of high-ranking Ministery operatives is a bad idea. But all you could think of all night, as you sipped your champagne and smiled at stupid jokes, was _Fuck Potter_. Fuck his need to save people who don’t want to be saved, fuck his bloody do-gooder friends. Fuck your father, fuck the Ministry, and most of all, fuck Voldemort.  
  
The whole situation is laughable, really. The idea of you being tried as a Death Eater. Of this new minister’s pathetic attempts to revive his flagging public support by offering you up as a not-so-virgin sacrifice to the past.  
  
As if being marked as his human sacrifice wasn’t the reason your father tried to kill you in the first place. As if it wasn’t the reason you were hidden.  
  
And the most frustrating thing, the thing that’s kept your normally immaculate fingers bitten to the quick, that’s kept you pacing restlessly around your suite in the north wing of the manor is that if Potter had waited two more years, just two more; if he hadn’t figured it out through his usually combination of sheer luck and idiocy, then you’d be dead and this entire mess would never have had to come to light in the first place. The Malfoys would be a dead line, your mother a footnote and your father a villain, and you would have never existed.  
  
Fucking Potter.  
  
You smirk to yourself at your choice of words as you pour yourself another scotch, because that’s exactly what the problem is. Only a tiny amount of your memories have come back, but you’ve only been awake for a few days. It’s a frustrating, yet necessary side of the spell. But what you didn’t count on is the force of the memories you’ve lost, how just seeing him move makes your breath catch in your chest and your groin ache. You decided long ago that fucking Potter was the worst decision you ever made, but the memories that keep you sweaty and shaking at night make you wonder, just the same. There’s no way to prepare for it – you’ll be reading, trying to improve your now-poor eyesight, and something will trigger a thought. The words blur, turning from sharp lines to grey smears and it comes rushing back, with so much force you have to pull your head between your knees so as not to retch.  
  
The party tonight didn’t help – at first you were just toying with him, enjoying watching the colour rise in his face as you taunted him about that little Irish whore. But even you weren’t prepared for the force of his reaction. You seem to have hit a nerve, and damned if you aren’t going to follow it up. Really, breaking Potter’s toys is just far too much fun to deny yourself the pleasure, and it’s not like you have enough contact with Hermione or Ron to really do any damage. But this junior operative – what was his name, anyway? Aaron? Abel? – this junior operative seems to mean something special to Harry. You grin to yourself as you peel your clothing off for bed, setting your half-full glass of scotch on the bedside table. He’s going to be easy to crack – he’s not even able to shield against a decent legilimens, for Merlin’s sake.  
  
 _Besides,_ you think to yourself as you drift off in an alcoholic haze, head heavy and aching, _if you can’t have Harry, than no one can._  
  
::  
  
 _You can already feel your cheekbone beginning to purple, the sickly reddish-green tinge that will fade to aubergine by tonight. You can feel Snape’s watchful gaze burning into you, and you duck your head further, trying to hide your bruised and bloodied face. It’s a matter of pride more than anything else – Snape always healed you when you were a boy, when you’d come back to Hogwarts black and blue from Father’s beatings. Snape isn’t a kind man, but he’s a far sight better than your father, and if it wasn’t for him you’d probably have several permanent and painful injuries by now. As it is you know you’ll find herbs and potions on your dresser table tonight, slipped in when no one was watching, but somehow, right now you don’t want to be healed. Somehow you enjoy it when Potter bruises you, unlike Lucius’ cold rage. There’s something so alive about him, so full of heat that means you can’t stay away, even though you know he hates you and everything you stand for. Besides, your antagonistic relationship means that you get to touch him more than even the Weasel and the Mud-blood do. They get to pat him on the back and spout their Gryffindor nonsense at him, sure, but you get to feel him panting and growling beneath you, get to feel the crack and bend of bone and sinews. It’s sick and masochistic but so is everything in your life, really, and you’ve been earmarked as a sacrificial victim since you were sixteen, so it doesn’t really matter what you do to your body, anyway. You aren’t supposed to know – you can still hear your father’s voice pleading with Voldemort, getting crucio’d for his concern over your life. The beating was particularly harsh that night, but you took it stoically, still reeling from the revelation of your father’s love for you. The beatings became easier, after that, especially when you caught him crying in his study afterwards. You know he’s just trying to protect you, to make it easier for you when the time comes and you will be tortured and killed by someone with no concept of mercy.  
  
It’s twisted and wrong, but you’re a Malfoy. Sickness and decadence is practically your birthright.  
  
Snape leaves after lighting the fire, the sudden heat making you shiver almost uncontrollably. Potter has gone to sit by the fire, and you watch the play of muscles in his back as he shifts position, noticeably favouring the shoulder that you almost dislocated earlier. Another thing that you would be beaten for, if it were ever to be found out at home.  
  
But your father isn’t here, so you indulge yourself, letting your eyes trace over Potter’s slim silhouette and dark head as he bends over his copy of _1001 Potions Ingredients and Distillations_. He’s an unhealthy obsession for you, and you’re beginning to suspect you both know it. After all, why else would you forgo healing, just so you can lie on your bed at night and trace your long fingers over the bruises, the raised scars? Even if no one else ever knows it, he’s marked you, claimed you as his own without even trying.  
  
His voice startles you out of your reverie. “Malfoy.” He calls your name over his shoulder, not even bothering to turn his head. “Stop being a stubborn prick and come sit by the fire. I’m not going to touch you. I have better things to do.”  
  
You leer back at him, acutely aware that with your matted hair and bruised face it’s not as effective as it might be. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you Potter? Can’t get enough of me, can you?”  
  
He just shrugs. “Whatever, Malfoy. You can freeze to death for all I care.”  
  
He turns back, ignoring you, and you fight the urge to run over and shove his face into the cold stone floor. You deliberately count to ten before you slide your chair back, the noise echoing in the drafty room.  
  
You sit as far away from him as possible, feeling the heat from the crackling fire radiate through your thin frame. You stare resolutely down at your textbook, ignoring the urge to touch him, because the only time you’re allowed to do so is when you’re beating each other savagely. You can feel the blood from your lip finally beginning to coagulate, cracking painfully when you draw your lips tight against your teeth.  
  
And it then happens – you see his muscles tense a fraction of a second before he pounces and you stiffen, readying your body for another assault. But instead of hitting you, he grabs your hair roughly and tugs you to him, kissing you and nipping at your split lip. You freeze in place, unable to move.  
  
This isn’t supposed to happen.  
  
Potter is your fantasy, your obsession, your crutch, person whose name is one your lips when you come, late at night behind moldy Slytherin curtains.  
  
He’s not supposed to reciprocate.  
  
That’s not how these things work.  
  
But you can feel him flush against your skin, heart pounding and body radiating heat as he licks the blood crusting on your lip. You can feel yourself getting hard, harder than you’ve ever been in your life, and you’re shaking and you don’t know what to do, not at all. Finally you break away, reacting the only way you know how, landing a solid punch to his right temple and running away.  
  
You lean up against the stone wall in the corridor, trying to regain your breath and not to fall apart on the spot. Because fuck, Potter – he just – fuck –  
  
You stumble blindly to the nearest loo, groping for the stall with one hand while the other is busy in your robes, pulling your cock out and gripping it with savage intensity. It only takes a few hard strokes and you’re coming, all over your hands and stomach and biting your lip and feeling the blood well over.  
  
Feeling the ghost of his lips still on yours._  



End file.
